Interactive television (iTV) is currently available in varying forms. At the core of iTV applications are the navigation applications provided to subscribers to assist in the discovery and selection of television programming. Current methods for browsing and selecting broadcast (linear) television programming involve the use of interactive program guides (IPGs)—also known as electronic program guides (EPGs). Current IPGs allow subscribers to browse and select broadcast programming and also provide for the ability to subset the broadcast program listings by subject or type of programming.
In addition to broadcast television, subscribers may now also be given opportunities to select from a list of programs that are not linear, but instead are provided on demand. Such content is generally referred to as Video on Demand (VOD). Current systems for browsing and selecting VOD programs include the ability to select such programming from categories of programs.
With the aid of advancing technologies, such as video compression, cable and satellite television system operators are able to send more and more broadcast channels over their systems. This, in turn, has prompted broadcast content providers to develop more channel offerings. Thus one content provider, or content provider holding company, may have multiple channel offerings. These offerings are often marketed or grouped under a single channel family brand, but each individual channel within the group usually provides different content at different times. An example of such a channel family is the Discovery Channel™ network, which began as a single channel and then added additional channels such as Discovery Wings™, Discovery Health™, and Discovery Science™.
Because channels of a family are often added to cable and satellite system line-ups over time and often have different carriage agreements, they usually have non-sequential channel numbers within a cable or satellite television service. Even where the channels are grouped as sequential access numbers, one must still first find the start of the channel family in a potentially large line up of channels. The result is that one cannot easily surf through the broadcast offerings for a given channel family provider.
Current technology for surfing television channels includes the ability to surf (navigate) up and down through channel numbers, generally through up and down arrow keys (or “+/−” keys) on a remote control and also allows for keying in a specific channel numbers and then advancing directly to that channel. The channel surfing up and down through channels may be filtered by genre, so as to enable surfing through content of specific genres: e.g., only movie content or only sports content. The channel surfing may also be restricted by what the television viewer has determined as their favorite channels. In that instance the surfing will only navigate through channels that have been pre-selected by the viewer.